Significance of team work
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Teamwork can be defined as any cooperative effort by a number of people in a team or group, which is meant to achieve one common objective. Generally, a team is formed to work on a given task or project. The team then automatically disbands once the project in question is complete. More often than not, there are expectations any given team becomes effective immediately. However, this expectation is unrealistic because all the members in the team have to mature and grow before the team turns into a highly effective group. Teamwork may involve members of a given team working within a group confidently, contributing one’s own ideas freely and effectively, being quite assertive - rather than aggressive or passive, taking some part of the collective responsibility, accepting constructive criticism and learning from it, and sending constructive feedback to other group members positively.
Research shows that teamwork has enabled ordinary students to obtain extraordinary results. In any team, members have common objectives and end up developing good, mutually beneficial relationships that facilitate achievement of the purposes of the team. The success of any team relies on the willingness of its members to work cooperatively as they share skills and knowledge each possesses. It is also important the team has a clear purpose even before members join to form such a team. Delivery of units in tertiary institutions is not an easy task; lecturers are usually at crossroads on how to cover extensive topics. This has contributed partly to the recognition of learner-centered, teamwork approach to learning in institutions of higher learning. Unless there is synergism among all the members of a team where an environment of voluntary contribution and participation is enhanced, the team environment becomes non-conducive and the project may fail.
3 to 5 students usually can form a team. The 6th student in a group is considered an intruder and makes the group a gathering. Team formation generally follows four steps. Coaching is known to support team formation in several occasions. At times, it may make the difference between achievement of objectives and failure; the latter characterizes teams that disband prior to completion of the task. In all forms of cooperative learning, formation of effective study teams is a necessary action. A team comprising four competent students has been shown as appropriate. The four-member group allows for a variety of interactions. It is possible to split the team into two sets or work as a team. Each team ought to be heterogeneous in order that learners will work in a variety of environments, and with people from different backgrounds.
The first stage in the formation of a team is forming. During this initial stage, the individual members of the team cannot be considered a team yet. Each member is still finding out personal attributes of the other person and needs to have a sense of inclusion; he or she seeks to identify the background and attitude of the fellow group member while trying to establish basic ground rules for the team. Each member is also keen in establishing his or her own identity in the proposed team; meanwhile each makes an individualized impression on the fellow group members. The principal concern at this stage is cohesion of the team, as well as involvement.
The second stage in team formation is storming. At this point of formation of the group, much conflict may be encountered. Sometimes, it has been quite hard for the team; members have engaged in heightened conflict while testing the limits of one another. People will often bargain with one another in an attempt to sort out the expectations of each member, including what each one of them contributes to the team process. Every member will communicate his or her personal objectives, and it is at that step where conflict might prevail as differences in individual objectives are unearthed. Individual members within the group may desist from accepting control and oppose other members of the team openly. Conflict management and team direction often become the major concerns during the stage of storming.
Norming is the next stage in team formation. At this level, norms and ground rules of the team are established fully. For example, the behavioral norms and role allocation are defined. The members develop a variety of approaches of tackling problems meant to forge harmony and close relationships in an environment of respect and mutual trust. The focus of each team lies on its set goals as well as delivery of results. There is increased acceptance of constructive feedback at this step.
The stage of performing is concerned primarily with carrying on with the project or task at hand while aiming to achieve the overall goals. Individual members of the team may probably exclude the non-team contribution from group thinking. The concerns that abound during the performing stage most likely have to do with individual performance like de-motivation. Nevertheless, a number of teams will never reach this level as they become caught up at an earlier stage.
The final stage in team formation is adjourning. In this stage, there is a high chance the team will disband since either the members have accomplished the task or there has been a massive walk out of fellow members. Before learners disband their team, members may gather and reflect on the time they spent together as each prepares to go his or her own way. Studies have identified some members that often experience a sense of loss and separation.
Guidelines for the formation of a team include:
- An appropriate team comprises a low student, two average ones, and one high ability learner.
- Projectteams should staytogetherfor a period of approximately six weeks.
- Generallyteams should havebothmalesandfemales.
- Ateam ought to reflecttheracialand ethnic diversity of the
- Oncetheprocess of teamformation is over, opportunitiesformembers to know one another should be madeavailable. In thestructuralapproach, suchactivities are considered icebreaker, and are calledteambuilders.
Couch potatoes and hitchhikers are to be found in many groups and play important roles in the group. Research has identified excommunication from the team the most appropriate way of solving the problems such people cause in the group. It has been suggested as cowardly and unwise to wait until the couch potato has done enough harm before kicking him or her out of the group[1].
Professors find assessment of students’ individual inputs in team assignments difficult. Various approaches, however, are available. Several factors need to be balanced during the assessment of team assignments. For example, the time the professor has to assess the assignments, available support, weight of the task or project on the final grade, and so on. In spite of the task being teamwork, the grade ought not to be necessarily a team grade. A few professors will grade each learner individually in the team assignment while the majority will simply give a single team grade. Others may sit somewhere in the middle, assigning both an individual and team grade.
One grading strategy popular with lazy professors is team grade. It is probably the easiest strategy to apply, but the most unfair to some students. When one simply assesses the final product, and then assigns each member the same grade, he or she assumes each member contributed equally. The advantage is that the assessment is fast, and results are issued almost instantly. In addition, in subtle team assignments completed in pairs, this strategy can work fairly. However, for enormous, complex projects with 3 to 5 members, such a grading strategy may punish a performer and award a ‘slacker’. In few instances, the professor may tend to believe this trend resemble the environment or industry in which the individual will work upon completion of his or her studies. This can be logical in some courses such as design and fine arts that involve designing a prototype. Nonetheless, the professor should not use this as a pretext to assess teamwork in this format.
In another system of assessment, there is an elaborate rubric. The grading starts with a team grade. This is called the adjustable team grade. After grading the assignment, each member of the team is required to assess the other team members using a survey. Members are asked about the attendance and contributions of each team member, as well as other variables pertaining to teaming. This evaluation is then used to adjust one’s scores up or down, depending on each person’s ratings. For example, if one team has 4 students and the evaluation has a 7-point scale, the mean rating for this team may be a 6. Now, the professor can look at each student’s average. He may draw a range, like a 5 to a 7. This means the team grade cannot adjust for such an individual. When one student receives a 7 average, the professor may decide to bump that person’s grade up or down a certain amount. When another student from the team averages a 4, the instructor may bump that grade down a certain amount. A number of professors will opt for standard deviations from the average grade the team got to establish the ‘bumps’. The merit of this strategy is that it recognizes students who contribute more than the others. Moreover, it facilitates fluctuation of grades as per peer feedback. The adjustable team grade system is also disadvantageous because personal conflict impacts a high performer negatively; peers may rate the student lowly based on personal grudges. Furthermore, teams may rate each other the highest in all the evaluations. At times, the teams plan such a scheme purposefully in advance. It may also happen when students are avoiding affecting a peer’s grade adversely, especially if they are likely to hold other courses with the peer[2].
Rarely, learners will default to scoring every member in the group the same. For example, on an 8-point scale, learners may award each member a ’7′. The learners may simply be ‘gaming’ the system so that all members of the team obtain a satisfactory grade. Alternatively, the evaluation may be done hurriedly and simply follow the shortest completion path. An easy way to alleviate such a difficulty is to modify the scale to a pool of points, which have to be distributed among various team members. The aim is to ensure the points are hard to distribute evenly among the members of the team. For instance, if a learner has to rate 4 members of his or her team, a pool of 27 points are provided for allocation across the 4 members. The scenario prompts a member to think about other members of the team as one member will mathematically get a lower score than the rest.
In other instances, the professor may decide to grade a task at the team level as well as at the individual level. This system is known as the team and individual grades system. For example, a task worth 50 marks may be split into a 25-point grade for the team and a 25-point for the individual grade. In the assignment of the individual grade, the professor relies typically on team evaluation. Self-assessment can also be useful, where every member documents how he or she contributed to the overall task. The team grade is the same for each member. In some cases, each student may be responsible for some portion of the overall task. For instance, every learner might be requested to develop a review of literature individually prior to embarking on a massive, team-based task or research project. The literature review, in this instance, is graded on an individual basis. The group then combines the knowledge from all the members’ reviews of literature to inform their task or research project better. At the end of every term, a single team grade is shared for the overall project. The advantage of this system is the provision for an opportunity of rewarding highly performing students and increasing the learners’ control over the individual grades they get. One demerit is the amount of the professor's time it consumes[3].
The pros of teamwork include the ability to work as a unit, facilitating the accomplishment of more task than an individual student can do. Additionally, when team members apply various skills they can establish an effective solution compared to one student working on the same task. Of importance is the mutual support the team members give to one another. Nevertheless, teamwork can also be disadvantageous. For example, conflicts are bound to arise and hamper the progress of the work. Some students become social loafers in the team; they do not participate actively and do not complete their part of the work[4]. The following figure illustrates some statistical aspects of teamwork[5].
Teamwork plays an important role in business schools worldwide. In most of the institutions, it has been the engine of effective learning. It is general knowledge that people have to learn to thrive in a continually changing world. Nevertheless, how groups learn has not been understood well yet. As will be explained, business schools are complex entities; most are distributed globally, some encompass a myriad of fields of expertise, and virtually all engage in multiple activities. What then, is the meaning that such a complicated entity can ‘learn’? A business school will not engage in any process of learning in a meaningful sense that the individual will. Yet, on learning, individuals do not always change the ways the school offers educational programs to its students. This conundrum has long fascinated academicians.
Teamwork is an extremely dynamic activity, unlike earlier notions that it was a static, bounded entity. Mostly, it is determined by the practices and mindset of teamwork, rather than the structures and design of an effective team. Teaming may involve collaborating and coordinating, but lacks stable structures and design, as numerous operations need a level of flexibility in staffing that makes stable teams rare[6]. In many organizations, the nature of work shifts constantly. This means the teams disband before they have gotten established fully. One could be in a team at the moment, but in a few weeks, or even days join a different team.
Teams will be beneficial in students' future in business. Work environments that are extremely fast moving, both locally and internationally, characterize companies. These need workers who are equipped with adequate knowledge on how to perform teaming, individuals with the flexibility as well as the skills act when potential collaboration appears. Such people must also possess the ability to keep moving, ready for other such moments. Teamwork relies on old-fashioned skills of teaming like recognition and clarification of interdependence, coordination, as well as the establishment of trust, all of which students will have learnt as they teamed up at school[7]. However, there usually lacks sufficient time to create a foundation of teaming familiarity through sharing of prior experience and personal history. The development of any shared experience as people practice working in a team is never given enough time. Therefore, in spite of the teaming skills with which students leave college, they may never get a chance to apply them. Instead, individuals need to develop novel capabilities for the sharing of experiences and critical knowledge fast. They should also learn to inquire frequently and clearly. They should create adjustments through which various experiences and skills can be woven together to come up with products[8].
Conclusion
Teamwork has found its way lately in many tertiary institutions. The trend has been attributed to a shift to a predominantly constructivist pedagogy from an instructivist one. For this reason, instructors in tertiary institutions have been forced to adopt some learning strategies to cope with the changed learning approach. The designs that have often been adopted have incorporated team based and student centered pedagogy like problem-based, case-based, project-based, as well as inquiry-based scenarios. When students are in environments that can promote actual learning in an actual context, such learning not only becomes easy but also enjoyable. When done in teams, for instance, deep learning through dialogue, interaction, problem solving, collaboration, and cooperation, is enhanced. Since team learning is embedded in a team experience within a social context, the technique promotes effective knowledge construction.
Assessment of teamwork and grading has created major contention among professors, but the trend remains common due to the ease of marking the scripts of the ever-increasing students.